TIFF 2023: 'Smugglers' is a Slick and Satisfying '70s Korean Crime Movie

It’s the 1970s. South Korea is closed off to much of the outside world. If you wanted nice things, like American cigarettes or Japanese TVs or some fancy illegal contraband, you had to go through the black market. Smugglers would try anything to get their products past the customs agents, including dumping them into the sea for fishermen to find. A group of haenyeo — female divers who free-dive to harvest molluscs and fish - in the Kunchon region are tasked with doing the dirty work for their local crime syndicate. After they’re ratted out to the officials, most of them are arrested and jailed, except for Chun-ja (Kim Hye-soo), who escapes and goes to Seoul to be a small-time hustler. Three years later, it’s time to get the gang back together, whether they like it or not.

Director Ryoo Seung-wan got his start working under the legendary Park Chan-wook but quickly rose up the ranks by helming frenetic, entertaining, and appealingly mainstream flicks that saw him labelled as South Korean cinema’s ‘action kid.’ Those skills are all on display here, with Smugglers revelling in its retro charm and Guy Ritchie-esque cycles of wheeling, dealing, and stabbings both back and front. Chun-ja finds herself in debt to Sergeant Kwon (Zo In-sung), the smuggling kingpin of Korea and a notorious war veteran who slashes her skull seconds after meeting her. To get into his good books, she suggests that they go into business together, returning to Kunchon to use the harbour as a dumping ground for shipments. Her former best friend Jin-sook (Yum Jung-ah) is not interested and everyone believes Choon-ja was the one who ratted them out to customs. Plus there’s a snotty new head honcho in charge of the waters, plus an increasingly zealous customs officer and more heavies than they can shake a stick at to deal with.

If that all sounds tough to follow, it’s not. Ryoo keeps the action moving at a brisk pace, doubling back to explain secret deals or the plans that allow our heroes, such as they are, to outwit their foes. He clearly has a lot of fun with the ’70s setting, turning up the brightness and using split screens for fun moments like the women’s post-success shopping sprees. It’s stylized to the point of near-parody, with oodles of Pucci prints, Farah Fawcett wigs, and bow-chicka-wow-wows on the score. Another extremely Ritchie-esque element is the balance of laughs and action - hello, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. — with characters conspicuously winking at one another regarding their schemes. Go Min-si is especially funny as Ok-bun, a local coffee shop owner who can turn on the soap opera-esque dramatics at the drop of a hat. Ryoo’s action kid credentials truly shine when it’s time for a fight. An Oldboy-inspired hotel room brawl is dizzying and violent while the underwater confrontations offer some of the most thrilling aquatic battles this side of ’70s era Bond. When blood is spilled, it always feels painful.

While many cocky and furious men fight for dominance of these waters, it’s the women who are in control. Smuggling is all they have after local chemical plants poisoned the waters, and post-jail life has left them all but unemployable. Everything they do is the demand of a man with an ego bigger than his brain, and they’re over it. Smugglers lets its messy heroines Chun-ja and Jin-sook get the meat of the tale, with their skills and smarts evidently more intriguing and worth investing in than those of their male counterparts. Chun-ja is a born performer who can talk herself out of everything while Jin-sook is a former wallflower who has hardened into granite through pure necessity. The shattering of their friendship through betrayal (but whose?) is palpable.

It’s a real shame, however, that the other women in the haenyeo group don’t get any real development. For a two-hour film, there was certainly room for us to learn more about them, especially since a major motivational force comes from one of them experiencing a tragedy. When a shocking injury occurs with this particular woman, the emotional punch doesn’t land beyond the gruesomeness of it simply because we don’t really know her. This could have been an Ocean’s Eleven kind of group, but instead most of those women are stuck on the sidelines. Even Kwon’s one-eyed right-hand man gets a sliver of backstory, so why not these women? They’re all portrayed as strong, capable, and protective of one another, which is refreshing (not a damsel or dope in sight), yet it’s not enough.

The dynamic of Kwon and Chun-ja is wobbly. He’s an obvious sociopath with no concern for violating others, but the film then hints at them being a potential future couple. This dude slashed her head open! And threatened to slit her throat! Sure, I think it would have been fascinating to see a relationship between two crooks with a hardcore kink for violence, but this isn’t the film for it. What we want to see is the women beating the men at their own game. Mercifully, we get that for the majority of Smugglers.

Smugglers is already a hit in South Korea, where it became the first film of this Summer to surpass five million movie-goers at the box office. It certainly has appeal for worldwide audiences if it’s able to get into that market. For anyone who spends their weekends curled up on the couch with a sparky crime caper, this is the film for you. Some character and running-time issues aside, you’ll be hard-pressed not to be entertained by Smugglers. Just let the women shine more and you can’t fail.

Smugglers had its North American premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. It currently does not have a US release date.